사우디 아라비아를 출발하여 홍해를 거쳐 이집트로 오던 페리 보트에서 불이 나 약1400명의 승객과 승무원들중 약1000명이 죽거나 실종되었다. 현재 389명이 구출되고, 185구의 시체가 인양되었으며 약800명이 아직도 실종상태라고 한다. CNN의 보도에 따르면 이 페리에 실렸던 트럭에서 불이 났다고 한다. 승객들이 선원들에게 이 사실을 알리니 선원들은 '걱정할 것이 없다'고 안심시키고 심지어 승객들이 구명자켓을 입고 있는 것을 보고는 '벗어라'라고 하고 실제로 벗기기도 했다고 한다.

선원들은 아래 층으로 내려가 불을 끄다가 안되니 선장 이하 자신들만 구명보트를 타고 달아나버리고 승객들을 화염속에 남겨두었다고 생존자들은 전하고 있다. 선원들이 '안심하라'고 한 것은 승객들이 흥분하면 불을 끄는 데 도움이 되지 않아서이겠지만, 승객들에게 대피하라는 통보도 하지 않고 자신들만 구명보트에 타고 달아나버렸다는 주장은 믿기지 않을 정도인데 목격자들의 한결 같은 증언이라 믿지 않기도 어렵게 되었다.

흥분한 실종자 사망자 가족들이 부두에서 돌을 던지면서 항의하는 모습이 텔레비전에 비쳤다.

이 무책임한 선장의 모습은 후진국은 역시 다르구나 하는 감회를 갖게 한다. 영국의 호화여객선 타이타닉호가 빙산이 부딪쳐 대서양에서 침몰할 때 선원들과 악단이 끝까지 남아 승객들의 철수를 도왔던 것과 비교된다.

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SAFAGA, Egypt (CNN) -- Survivors of the Red Sea ferry disaster have accused the captain and crew of abandoning them to their fates by fleeing the burning ship by lifeboat, as hopes fade of finding 800 passengers still missing.

Amid chaotic scenes at an Egyptian port Saturday, hundreds of angry relatives of the 1,400 passengers on board the ferry tried to storm an Egyptian port demanding information about loved ones.

Some of the 389 passengers rescued after the ferry sank about two and a half hours into its journey said crew had told them not to worry about a fire below deck and even ordered them to take off lifejackets.

Officials at the Cairo-based El Salam Maritime Transport Co, which owned the Al Salam Boccaccio 98, were not immediately available to answer the allegations.

By daylight Saturday, 185 bodies had been pulled from the 1,000-meter deep (3,000 foot) waters, officials said.

The 36-year-old ferry -- which was carrying passengers and freight -- had about 1,300 passengers and 100 crew members on board, Egyptian officials said, near its capacity of 1,487 passengers.

Egypt's Transport Minister Mohamed Loutfy Mansour said Saturday an initial investigation showed a truck erupted in flames in the hold of the ship.

After the crew tried to put out the fire, the captain's efforts to turn the boat around caused it to tilt in heavy winds and ultimately sink.

Some survivors at a hospital in Hurghada, on Egypt's north-central Red Sea coast, told CNN they saw smoke, which smelled as if it came from an electrical fire, about two and a half hours into the trip.

The ferry had departed Dubah, in western Saudi Arabia, en route to Safaga -- about 200 kilometers (120 miles) away -- when radar contact was lost at midnight Friday (10 p.m. Thursday GMT).

The seas were rough when the Al Salam Boccaccio 98 capsized, said Mansour.

Egyptian survivor Shahata Ali said the passengers had told the captain about the fire but he told them not to worry.

'We were wearing lifejackets but they told us there was nothing wrong, told us to take them off and they took away the lifejackets. Then the boat started to sink and the captain took a boat and left,' he told Reuters Television.

'The captain was the first to leave and we were surprised to see the boat sinking,' added Khaled Hassan, another survivor. Other survivors also reported that the crew played down the gravity of the situation and withheld lifejackets.

'There was a fire but the crew stopped the people from putting on lifejackets so that it wouldn't cause a panic,' said Abdel Raouf Abdel Nabi, one of the survivors.

'There was a blaze down below. The crew said 'Don't worry, we will put it out.' When things got really bad the crew just went off in the lifeboats and left us on board,' said Nader Galal Abdel Shafi, another arrival on the same rescue boat.

Rescuers were pessimistic about finding more people alive. 'There aren't expected to be many survivors, because it's been so long since the ship went down,' a source close to the operations told Reuters.

In Safaga, one hysterical woman hammered on an iron gate to the port, where survivors from the Al Salam Boccaccio 98 ferry were being brought ashore.

Some angry relatives threw rocks at police as they awaited information about passengers on the ferry.

The port officials were not distributing lists of survivor names to the crowd outside, who repeatedly tried to break through a line of police with sticks.

'No one is telling us anything,' said Shaaban el-Qott, from the southern city of Qena, who was furious after waiting all night at the gates of the port in Safaga for news of his cousin.

'All I want to know (is) if he's dead or alive,' he told The Associated Press.

Stability questions
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak flew to the port of Hurghada, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) further north of Safaga, on Saturday to oversee the rescue operation and visit survivors.

He told reporters the government would pay emergency compensation to survivors and relatives of the dead. Survivors are to receive 15,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,600 U.S.) and families of the dead are to get twice that.

A Maritime Transport spokesman said the Al Salam Boccaccio 98 was certified to carry passengers until 2010 and was fully compliant with maintenance regulations.

However, one man in the crowd told CNN he had taken the same ship on the same route a month ago and that the ship appeared overloaded on that trip, packed with passengers and laden with eight large trucks filled with freight, the man said.

He also said the clasps that secured lifeboats to the ship were rusted.

Other former passengers also reported that the ferry was antiquated.

'It's a roll-on, roll-off ferry, and there is big question mark over the stability of this kind of ship,' David Osler, of the London shipping paper Lloyds List, told AP.

'It would only take a bit of water to get on board this ship and it would be all over. ... The percentage of this type of ferry involved in this type of disaster is huge.'

Offer rejected
Egypt's state-run Nile TV said the passengers included at least 115 foreigners, about 100 of them Saudi nationals. Most of those on board were Egyptian laborers returning from jobs in Saudi Arabia.

Four Egyptian frigates and a navy destroyer, along with coast guard boats and helicopters were at the search-and-rescue site, about 95 kilometers ( 57 miles) from Hurghada, said Adel Shoukri, a spokesman for the transport company.

Egyptian government officials asked mariners in the Saudi port of Jeddah for help, and Saudi Arabia sent two vessels.

Egypt turned down Britain's offer to send an amphibious assault ship, saying the ship was too large for the search effort.

The ship, which was built in 1970 and launched in Italy, flew a Panamanian flag.

It was refurbished in 1990 at an Egyptian shipyard. The vessel was involved in a collision in 1999, according to a ferry company spokesman.

Cairo Bureau Chief Ben Wedeman and Correspondent Paula Hancocks contributed to this report.